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Chapter 2 - Complications (TWB)
They hadn't bothered to sleep that night. Eelee was adamant on visiting Bowser as soon as possible, and with Rob's support, they forced Jamie to come along to Bowser's Castle. Bowser had known the three of them the longest - Rob was going to be his flesh and blood - so he was most comfortable around them. The base's position in the Shooting Star Mountains, a range of mountains just outside the east boundary of Toad Town made travel to the capital of the Mushroom Kingdom very easy, but to the Koopa Kingdom, many days southeast, very cumbersome. Even with the technology the group possessed, which included a group of small, two or three person airships, it took a few hours to get down south. Eelee was one of the three qualified pilots of the airship in the non-Koopan team, the other two being Rob and Squirt, so he was in his element as he closed in on the capital of the Koopa Kingdom. They had been travelling for five hours, so the first signs of dawn were breaking over the western frontier as Eelee aligned the plane with one of the various runways behind Bowser's Castle. The Koopa Kingdom had more of a rugged look than the Mushroom Kingdom, with mountains within visible range of the capital in all directions - the capital, Neo Bowser City, was based in a natural hollow between the Koopalps mountains. The sky was often tinted with red, with the active volcanoes all around the Kingdom. The airship they were flying was small, with the widest portion only wide enough for two seats, and the frontal portion, which held the yoke that Eelee was holding, could only have one. There were only three seats in the airship, with a thick glass covering preventing the elements from reaching the tiny cabin. The supplies were stored in a few crates just behind the two back seats, where Rob and Jamie were lounging. "We've been flying for hours! Can you just land already?" Jamie asked impatiently, peering over Eelee's shoulders at the various instrument needles. "Landing this thing takes time, Jamie." Eelee responded, exhaling through his nose irritably, his eyes locked on the black tarmac ahead of him. The flashing lights on the sides and in the centre of the runway indicated where he should land the small airship. In the dull light, it was difficult, but it would be far from impossible. I won't need nearly that much space - this airship is tiny. "Hey, Eelee, quick question - why was it smart to leave Yoshi in charge of the base?" Rob questioned, leaning back in his plush black chair. Eelee didn't bother to take his eyes off the tarmac below as he dropped the airship. "He's fourth in command. That's all there is to it." "He's in your room, looking through your stuff." Jamie remarked bluntly, crossing his arms and looking out the window. "What?!" Eelee exclaimed, making the airship jump up and down violently as his hands shook. Then, he exhaled out of his nose deeply again. "Fine. Fine," Eelee attempted to push it off, his voice noticeably higher. "I'm sure Yoshi will do... a great... great... job." He wrenched out, making a mental note to use Yoshi's toothbrush to clean the toilet. * "Oh, good, more blackmail to use against Eelee." Yoshi remarked, pushing his way out from underneath a blue blanketed-bed. "He should really think of a better place to put his diary than under his bed." The room he was in was a rather cozy room, with a fireplace opposite to the bed's base, and the bed directly across from the wooden double doors. Near the smooth marble walls of the room were various dressers and plaques, with pencils and binders askew on the tops, posted on the walls were pages upon pages of untidy handwriting. The floor was covered by a soft, blue carpet. In his hand he held a tiny black book, and on his face he wore a smirk. Eelee, Jamie and Rob had just left for Bowser's Castle. Yoshi was busy in Eelee's room, drawing obscene symbols on the pages that were taped onto the walls. He was just in the middle of taking the mattress off the bed when the wooden double doors at the front of the room burst open. It was Squirt. The large-nosed hero opened his mouth, clearly flustered: "Yoshi, we have a- what are you doing?" Squirt halted in the threshold of the room, seeing Yoshi awkwardly holding the mattress' front end from the bottom, with the bottom end still on the bed. "Putting Spiny spikes underneath Eelee's mattress. Want to join in?" Yoshi remarked in a matter-of-fact way, before continuing to heave the mattress off the bed. "What? Why?" Squirt questioned the largest hero, who succeeded in heaving the mattress onto the blue carpeted floor. Yoshi shrugged. "I want to. Hey, do you know he thinks of you as a 'blue-eyed, scarred-face, with questionable heroic qualities?'" "That's great, but, Yoshi- wait, what?" Squirt stopped his sentence as he processed what Yoshi just said to him. Yoshi, seemingly unperturbed, continued placing Spiny spikes on the bedframe. "Have a look for yourself." Yoshi tossed the black book in the way of Squirt. Squirt bent down and picked the book up, rapidly rifling through the pages to find the aforementioned passage. Sure enough, written in the untidy scrawl that was Eelee's handwriting, was "Squirt is a hero who is blue-eyed, scarred-face with questionable heroic qualities. I'm not sure how long I want take him along." The date, scrawled above it, was M/22/1986. "Yoshi, this is dated to a year ago." Squirt scoffed, before tossing the book back in the general direction of Yoshi. "And my eyes aren't even blue! They're green!" Yoshi, who had finished placing spikes underneath the mattress, pushed the mattress back in place, before turning to Squirt. "Never you mind. My genius is wasted on you." Yoshi picked up the book and pocketed it in the pants pocket of his black suit. "What else shall I do here...?" Yoshi thought aloud, imagining the things that would annoy Eelee the most. A shrill scream echoed across the hallways of the base. Squirt, who was busy stewing over the diary, suddenly realized the purpose he had bothered Yoshi for. "Oh yeah! We're being invaded!" Squirt exclaimed, fishing around for the nunchucks on his waist. Whipping them out, he promptly spun them around a few times, before whacking himself in the face. Turning around, rubbing his large schnoz, Squirt found himself face to face with a human with a scraggly mane of red hair all across his head and neck. Squirt let out an exclamation of shock and leapt backwards a few steps into Yoshi. Yoshi, the mountain of muscle he was, was barely moved by the smaller Squirt crashing into him. Letting his eyes scan the doorway, he locked on the man standing in the door, and couldn't suppress hoots of laughter. "This ''guy scared you? Squirt, he's not even up to your chest!" Yoshi snorted in-between laughter. The man was small, wearing a black cape that covered most of his body, with plenty of facial hair and hair making his face look like a red maze. His yellow eyes stared out from above a flowing walrus mustache and tilted nose, glinting ominously. "He already subdued Crystal." Squirt grunted, leaping to his feet. He was a tall man, but was comparatively dwarfed by Yoshi. "He has her." It was true. Squirt had been minding his own business in his room in the Mountain Base, when he was bombarded by a panicky Crystal bursting into his room. The early warning sensors of an invasion, had alerted Crystal to the presence of a legion of airships making it's way over Toad Town. With Eelee, Jamie and Rob not present, Squirt believed that this was his big break. Yoshi was never much of a leader, despite being fourth in command... this was where he, Squirt, would chase the enemies out of Toad Town. Of course, Squirt was surprised to realize that the airships had in fact, not stopped over Toad Town, but were proceeding east to the Shooting Star Mountains, where the base was housed. The lack of external defences - the Mountain Base was built to weather attacks, not to defend itself - meant that Squirt and Crystal were left woefully underprepared. Eelee had always wanted to run drills for emergency situations, but unanimous vote otherwise prevented that happening. Squirt never regretted that - had Crystal not failed to close and lock one of the heavy, disguised iron doors that entered the base, they would not have been invaded. It was not ''his ''lack of preparation that led to this situation. "He's not even worth my big toe. My little toe can take him." Yoshi snickered, reaching under the bed and pulling out the large mace that was his weapon. Spinning the sunglasses, which had been on the back of his head, to in front of his eyes, Yoshi hefted the mace in the direction of the man. "I suggest you leave now." "No." The man croaked. The man had entered the base through the door Crystal had failed to lock, and had immediately overpowered the heroine, who was just down the hallway from the entrance. Squirt had tried to stop the man, but the small man had backup, and so, Squirt hightailed it down to the main area of the base for Yoshi's assistance as the man clearly opened some of the locked exits to the invading forces. "Yes." Yoshi nodded, smiling. Squirt rolled his eyes at the exchange occurring between Yoshi and the man. Not even bothering to justify his movements, Squirt hurtled toward the man, swinging his nunchucks by the chain. Pain flared up his spine as he felt himself be hurled through the air and into the hard marble wall. In one fluid movement, the man had ripped out a sword from his waist, and clipped Squirt in the ankles, before giving him a strong push into the wall with his left hand. Yoshi shook his head at Squirt's incompetence, before racing to the man swinging his mace like a madman. The man was small, but he was agile. Leaping from place to place, avoiding the brutal clubs of the mace, the red-haired man managed to slice scraps of clothing and skin from Yoshi's back, sides and arms. Squirt, leaping up from his position against the wall, rejoined the battle, giving Yoshi a breather. Yoshi bent to his knees. On the floor were precious black scraps of his suit. "YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" Yoshi screamed in agony, "THE REFUND POLICY EXPIRED YESTERDAY!" Jumping to his feet, Yoshi locked eyes with the man, fury pumping through his veins. Spinning around with the mace in his right hand, Yoshi felt satisfaction sear through him as he contacted the man's face, if only with his left hand, sending the clean sound of a slap echoing through the room. ''Fear not, my precious suit. You shall be avenged. '' A gust of hot wind hit Squirt like a punch to the stomach as Yoshi sparred with the man. Losing sight of the tussle in front of him, Squirt felt his feet leave the ground, and braced his body for the inevitable collision with something solid. He landed roughly against the wall to Eelee's room. Shaking off the soreness, Squirt saw that Yoshi had met a similar fate, having been thrown in the air against a wall. But what was more terrifying was that Squirt realized that he had not only been thrown by the wind, but he had also been scorched, for the man had raised himself into the air slightly, levitating a few inches off the ground, his hands coated with fire as Rob's always were when he controlled fire, and a circle of flames surrounding him, preventing either Yoshi or himself from attacking the man. ''He can control fire. This isn't going to end well. ''Glancing to Yoshi, who had now recovered enough to sit on his knees, Squirt saw that the other hero was looking at the scorched sleeves of his suit in shock. "YOSHI, GET OUT OF HERE!" Squirt bellowed as he got up, desperately looking for a gap in the wall of fire Realizing he wasn't going to get one, Squirt leapt straight through the thin wall of fire, feeling his hands grasp the man's neck. Tackling him out of the air and onto the floor, Squirt ignored the stabs of searing agony caused from fire scorching his tunic and extremities, particularly his fists, and focused on whaling punches on the man. "It's just one guy. I can take him." Yoshi remarked, turning to the fiery haze of battle that was Squirt and the man. The circle of fire continued to exist, which was mildly surprising, and surrounded the hand to hand grounded battle. Then, Yoshi looked beyond the scrum, out the double doors of Eelee's room. Waiting in the main hallway of the base, were countless more humans of the invading forces, all with the same light of battle in their eyes. Behind them, Yoshi thought he could vaguely make out a cage. The humans made no move to attack Yoshi, clearly just preventing an escape. "Oh." Yoshi looked back at the blaze that was the battle, before back into the hallway. The soldiers in the hallway gazed back, unblinkingly. "Right then. Bye." Yoshi took a few steps toward the double doors. The soldiers in the front of the line immediately dropped into defensive positions, wielding weapons ranging from axes to hammers to swords. They were clearly going to prevent his escape by any means. They were lined up six-strong in the hallway, but Yoshi noticed that to his left, just behind the initial line of soldiers, was a small side door that took one to the hangar. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Yoshi roared at them, before running at the soldiers at the front of the pack. If he could just make it to the door a few steps away... The soldiers, taking a natural step back with the nearly seven foot tall man racing at them, braced themselves by dropping into their defensive positions once again, expecting the brown-haired freak to race right into them and begin a futile battle. Rather, Yoshi leapt into a side door on the left, pushing aside the wooden door in his haste. The few steps back the soldiers had taken had given him the space he needed. Hearing the soldiers desperately push themselves behind him as quickly as possible, Yoshi put his head down and ran, his mace on his shoulder. * "Is that not ''our ''airship, Eelee?" Rob asked, his red and blue mask pointed to the steadily brightening Koopan skies. Eelee had just landed the airship, and they had disembarked at the terminal, waiting for permission from Kamek to begin to make their way to the Castle from the back. Eelee looked up in the same direction, seeing an erratically flying red airship swing around in the skies above the Castle. Sure enough, when Eelee looked at their blue airship, everything was identical, from the slim hull, to the dual vertical rudders, to the thick glass covering on top. The only difference was colour. "Oh, it is." Eelee realized. "WHY?!" Eelee shrieked angrily, earning some reproachful glances from Koopan workers nearby. "It looks like it's going to land!" Rob noticed, as the airship dropped suddenly and began to close in on the runway fifty feet away from the three heroes. "He can't!" Eelee exclaimed. "It'll be suicide!" "Yoshi knows what he's doing." Jamie said bluntly, following the airship's progress. "How do you know that's Yoshi?" Eelee demanded as the airship closed in, now barely thirty feet above the ground. "It's not Squirt, or he wouldn't be flying that brilliantly, and it's definitely not Crystal, or we would know who it was." Jamie explained with the air of explaining two plus two equals four. Eelee stole a glance at Rob. The helmeted hero merely shrugged, as if suggesting "''That's pretty sound logic." "It's still suicide, though!" Eelee curled his hand into a fist, desperately willing either of Jamie or Rob to see sense. "Are you guys that incompetent?!" "Yoshi knows what he's doing." Jamie repeated. Eelee began to bite his nails as the red airship was about to touch the ground, wheels out. At the speed it was going at, the wheels would buckle on impact. But rather than land, the pilot clearly pulled the "eject" button, a small red button at his feet, for the glass covering was shorn off, and a black shape was erupted into the dawn light. Spinning through the air, a parachute flew from the back of the hero, and he began to gracefully descend. The airship, meanwhile, touched the ground with an impact that jarred everyone in the area. It skidded across the tarmac, before veering completely off course, crashing into the red rocks on the far side, erupting in flames. It's pilot, however, landed gently on the near side of the runway. It was indeed Yoshi. Eelee raced toward the lanky hero, Jamie and Rob at his heels. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?" He screamed as he drew closer. "Did you think at all!? You lost one of the airships!? Why did you have to follow us!? YOU LEFT SQUIRT IN CHARGE OF THE BASE?! You could've killed us!" Eelee drew even closer, now within a few feet of Yoshi, who was standing there, a bored expression on his face. "WHY, YOSHI-" Yoshi stuck out a fist, accidentally-on-purpose knocking his pontificating leader to the tarmac with a heavy punch to the nose. "We have a problem."